Marios Costambeys is Senior Lecturer in the School of History at the University of Liverpool. His previous publications include Power and Patronage in Early Medieval Italy: Local Society, Italian Politics and the Abbey of Farfa, c.700–900 (Cambridge University Press, 2007). Matthew Innes is Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London. His previous publications include State and Society in the Early Middle Ages: The Middle Rhine Valley, 400–1000 (Cambridge University Press, 2000). Simon MacLean is Senior Lecturer in the School of History at the University of St Andrews. His previous publications include Kingship and Politics in the Late Ninth Century: Charles the Fat and the End of the Carolingian Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

• 1. Introduction; 2. The creation of Carolingian kingship to 800; 3. Belief and culture; 4. Inventing the Carolingian empire: politics and government, 800–840; 5. Villages and villagers, land and landowners; 6. Elite society; 7. Exchange and trade: the Carolingian economy; 8. Sustaining the Carolingian empire: politics and government, 840–888; 9. Epilogue.

'This book is to be welcomed. It is the Carolingian synthesis for a new generation; everyone from students to established academics will need to read it. It is highly sensitive to the transformation of approaches of the last generation of political/cultural historians, and it moves seamlessly into a welcome new analysis of the non-aristocratic majority as well.' Chris Wickham, Chichele Professor of Medieval History, University of Oxford